Coms.V A N Namboodiri, Advisor and K G Jayaraj, General Secretary met Shri P K Sinha, Member (Finance) and Shri.Amitab Sinha, DDG (Accounts), Department of Telecommunications on 16th December,2019 and had a detailed discussion on processing of pension papers and timely disbursement of pension to all the VRS retirees, numbering 78,569. The delegation pointed out that our CCA offices are not equipped with the infrastructure and staff to deal with such a huge workload which unusual and unprecedented . We are aware that some of the CCAs are utilizing the services of a few retired officials as consultants. However the facts remains that determining the pension in each case requires scrutiny of relevant records and time consuming. It is absolutely impossible to complete the process within the stipulated time.
Therefore the delegation demanded that Provisional Pension be granted to those VRS retirees whose pension could not be determined at the stipulated time frame. Member (Finance) was very positive in his approach and agreed to consider the proposal favourably. He further stated that verification of service books is the main job in this regard and about 33,000 service books have already been verified in the respective CCAs and only Tamil Nadu and Telangana Circles are lagging behind. A high level committee of officers are constituted at DoT and the progress of work is being monitored regularly. The delegation appreciated the initiative and effective measures being undertaken.
The delegation also asked about the payments of ex-gratia to the VRS retirees and the Member (Finance) was hopeful of disbursement of the the ex-gratia in two installments, first in February and the second in June,2020.